You spend six months over your entire life just doing laundry. You spend almost two years on personal grooming, and nearly three and a half on eating and drinking. But if current trends keep up, you can expect to pour nearly five and a half years into social media. The only thing you do more is watch TV.
Last year, Mediakix published an infographic breaking down all kinds of data about the way we use social media. Between Facebook, YouTube, Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, we spend about two hours with social media each day — but that's only if we're not teenagers. The next generation of consumers is on social media for up to nine hours daily.
Sometimes these statistics don't match up with the way regular people use technology, especially given our habit of multitasking and self-interrupting. But if those numbers make you want to step back and reassess how you use your time, there are tools to help if you, if cold turkey isn't your style. Beyond turning off your phone's notifications, you can also download productivity apps that block access to your accounts for a set amount of time. For Mac users, Focus and SelfControl are popular options, while Windows, Mac, and Android users can all try FocusMe.
While technology can help, a lot of time management is simply psychology. To help yourself recover all that time, consider the Bored and Brilliant Challenge from podcast Note to Self. It introduces small changes and tasks to help you integrate offline time back into your life. And if you'd rather avoid the digital world altogether, it also comes in book format. According to Mediakix's research, we spend about 15 months of our lives interacting with friends in person. If that sounds like it isn't enough, these tools can help you rise to the challenge.